Growth and changes

Hey friends. It's been a while (ahem). Seems that life has been very busy with work, ministry, and nesting. Yup, this (California)momma bird has been full swing into gathering all the twigs and straw to build a nest for her baby bird. It has been one of the most joyous parts of pregnancy to paint the walls, hang the curtains, iron the clothes, dress the bed, organize the drawers and closets, etc. all in preparation for the tiny occupant moving in within the next six weeks. Below are some pictures of all the changes in the house.

Whew! I can't believe Karis' arrival is so close, and I must admit that the old saying "how time flies" sure has applied to my pregnancy. In many ways I have been thankful for the expediency of this time in my life. Work has helped distract me from worrying any more than I have. The usual (and unusual) first time parent concerns have been present for me but probably not as much as they would have been had I not had my work to distract me. Not only do I get to do what I love in my job, but I am finished working in two weeks and then I will be left with about 3.5 weeks to go before the due date. Nice timing!

Matt and I have been totally blessed in the last few months as we have been preparing. Lately God has blessed me by allowing me to find some great sales. Regarding the aforementioned nesting habits, I found that preparing the nursery wouldn't suffice to prepare the house. I also needed to redo the living room. Thanks to some generous birthday gifts and some killer deals at Pier 1 and the always affordable Dollar Tree, Ross, and Wal-mart, I have redecorated my home and can breathe a sigh of relief that it is how I want it to be. My home environment is very important to me, and having it reflect my taste and personality is no minor feat on a tiny budget. Yet I find that I loooove the adventure of finding clearance/used items and building a room to suit my taste out of limited financial resources. I do think that God has been so gracious to allow me to redecorate on my budget. I sometimes have to fight the idea in my head that just because you are in ministry and/or have limited resources then you can't have your heart's desire in home decor. Well, the Lord has shown me over and over that I can colorfully and creatively decorate my home...in fact it speaks of His creativity and work in my life and his delighting in my personality that yearns to have a creative environment. Below are some pictures from the living room redo.

These curtain panels were the inspiration for the room redo...marked down to $11 from $50, I couldn't pass them up...even if they were a color I don't normally decorate with--blue. Then again, we are undergoing lots of changes (as the title of this post implies) so why not mix up my home's color palette a little bit!


Pier 1 had this wonderful large glass plate marked down to $7 and the wooden vase was $4.

Trader Joe's has the best price on orchids-$7 for this beauty. The hurricane vases were $2 in the craft section of Wal-mart...while 'Wally-world' usually doesn't boast of great style for the home, I love the vases in the craft section because they are often cheaper than the vases in their regular home decorations section. Classic look and cheap...I'm game.

Fun pillows from Pier 1-$3! Crazy deal, I know.

Ok, enough of the home tour. On to other growth and changes. Matt snapped a few of these shots of me today. The background should be familiar to you guys as we often shoot pictures in our backyard. The field behind our house has been home to three cows the last few weeks. They have lived truly in the lap of luxury under the California sun eating up the overgrown grass on the hills. I guess the "Happy cows come from California" commercials are pretty accurate! Anyways, these are some updated shots of me and the cows.

Here are the backyard cows watching Matt do my photo shoot.

Just a few more things to share...the baby crib quilt is back and it is fun! I am so blessed to have this custom crib quilt. Here are the pictures from the final project. The second picture is the bumper and skirt. It's definitely fun and funky. I figure the patterns probably won't lull Karis to sleep much, but at least she might turn out to be really creative and fun loving.

Well, thanks for sticking with me through this long post. I had lots to share over the last month, and this post didn't even begin to cover all of it. I am going to post again soon as I want to upload a link to Matt's sermon he preached today. The Lord really answered our prayers about this sermon...we prayed that the Holy Spirit would help him to find his preaching voice/style, and it really showed today. I have had a lot of thoughts about ministry as of late (the ups and downs) and hopefully I can process it is some and blog about it. I will say that watching Matt speak from his heart and use the gifts God has given him has caused me to be thankful that the Lord has us here and working at a church. We are richly blessed. Imperfect and ever fighting our imperfections....but nonetheless, richly blessed!